Poppy Jenkins

by Clare Ashton

“Sometimes things should be left buried. No point digging up an old carcass just to find it’s a putrid, rotten mess.

‘I thought it was about love, happiness and finding oneself – all the important things. I think that can be done over a cup of tea just as well as on a fishing boat.’”

It was beguiling looking at someone so familiar made exotic by the passage of time.

Those icy blue eyes seemed to thaw into deep sapphire, hypnotising, enticing, drawing her in.

“I could never be with you.” Poppy glared. “How would I ever trust you? How could I believe you’d never break my heart? You can hurt me so easily because I’m weak when it comes to you. There’s a fracture where you broke my heart at sixteen, and if you did again I don’t think it would ever heal.”

“If we started something,” Poppy said, “it would have to last forever. And when you despise almost everything about my life, I don’t believe it would.”